I am a manic shooter, inspired to shoot anything that moves for maybe four to six months, and then I won't pick up the camera for another six. So the Nikon D7000 - 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G AF-S ED VR II combo, which I bought about three years ago has faithfully (somewhat) served my purposes. I shoot mostly handheld/monopod and the Nikon package is flexible and unobtrusive to carry. But now I'm really frustrated with the lack of sharpness of the Nikkor and trying to compensate for it's weakness in post, especially when I'm trying to enlarge to, say, 11X14. Plus, I'm jealous of the great pix I see displayed on this site. So, I'm going to invest up to $1,000.00 for a new, faster lens (the D7000 is OK for my purposes) but I need advice. With the exception of the 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR I or II (which is too heavy and too expensive), can you folk offer some advice (can a bear......). By the way, I shoot with a tripod and remote whenever possible but the lens is inherently soft. Thanks.

Just out of curiousity, Raz, what aperture range are you working within? On a D7000, you must know that apertures smaller than about f/8 will show noticeable diffraction limiting of sharpness. By f/16 it is pretty bad, and at f/32 it's a special effect.

Lots of folks don't understand this — the smaller the format, and the higher the resolution of the sensor, the wider the aperture at which diffraction starts to degrade sharpness.

That said, this is a lens (and a focal length range in general) that is full of compromises and tends to disappoint. The second gen is much better than the first, but still... There's only so much you can do with that range.

Zooms with shorter ranges are much easier to design and build, and usually perform a lot better. That is why professionals break this range into three lenses, buying a 14 to 24, a 24 to 70, and a 70 to 200. Each of those ranges is well-controlled in every way.